RBB director Patricia Schlesinger (61) Photo: dpa picture alliance
By Michael Sauerbier
The RBB Broadcasting Council has fired director Patricia Schlesinger (61)!
The scandal director has been dismissed with “immediate effect” – 22 of 23 broadcasting councils voted for this at a crisis meeting. This formally initiates the termination of the contract.
According to BZ information, Schlesinger has not resisted her dismissal and has NOT asked for any severance pay.
The reason for leaving the director: a private dinner with the Berlin police chief Barbara Slowik, which she let the broadcaster pay for. BZ had uncovered it.
BZ presented the expense report on August 8th: the director demanded 1154.87 euros from her broadcaster for the meal in February. After two bottles of champagne (“Veuve Clicquot”), the nine guests are said to have emptied twelve bottles of wine for the four-course meal in Schlesinger’s Schöneberg apartment. Among them police chief Barbara Slowik and Charité boss Heyo Kroemer with their spouses.
The following day, the public prosecutor’s office initiated corruption investigations. Slowik and Kroemer promptly explained that it was a “purely private” invitation. You would not have known that the RBB paid for the hospitality.
Without this explanation, both would also have come into the focus of the investigators. The end for Schlesinger.
At the RBB crisis meeting, Schlesinger said of the accusation: “I can understand that some guests ate the food on February 12th. considered private.”
However, she says nothing about her husband Gerhard Spierl’s consultancy contracts with Messe Berlin.